3. Written, 3 TPE, Haven’t I Seen This Before? (150 words min.)
Despite being the 8th and 10th ranked regular season teams in the league, our finalists from Winnipeg and New England represent two of the most dominant teams over the past several seasons. What do you think is the secret to their success? What can other teams learn from them? Which one is more likely to be back again next year?


They are both very well built teams from the ground up. Despite not always having phenomenal regular season success, you can always count on them to perform in big games. Both teams have some incredible top end talent (Lias Ekholm-Gunnarsson, Matsmith Soderberg-Tremblay, and Jay O’Neil for Winnipeg, and Ivan Lacksamus, Seamus O’Slapahan, and Olof Karsikko for New England) but both teams also have filled out their rosters with some fantastic depth pieces and a great group of veteran players as well. Both teams seem to have a really strong core to build off of and can re-tool around that core to have continued success. It’s just a matter of finding those guys who are gonna keep training week in, and week out. Once you have a team willing to go hard for each other each game, anything can be possible. I think between the two teams, New England is the most likely to have a return appearance sooner.

3 TPE


4. Written, 3 TPE, The Char B1 bis In The Room (150 words min.)
This league was until quite recently dominated by a cabal of four teams. Two of them, Winnipeg and New England, are our finalists. A third, Philadelphia, was a finalist last year. The fourth... was Montreal. Does the success of Winnipeg and New England prove that Montreal pulled the plug too soon and should’ve kept the gang around? Or did at least one of the others just get lucky and Montreal made the better decision, without hindsight? What team-building lessons can we learn from this?

I think team building needs to start with getting good locker room guys. The guys who are more willing to speak up in the locker room are the guys who will make sure no one is skipping out on training. Surrounding yourself with people who will hold you accountable is step 1. Well, I guess step 1 is scouting to find those guys. Step 2 is working through the draft. Every season there’s an incredible crop of junior players just itching at their opportunity in the big leagues. 1 good draft can set you up for a long time. Beyond that, I think knowing when to pull the plug is also important. Sometimes things aren’t working with the crop you have, so instead of letting it “rot” so to speak, you dig it up and start again. There’s no harm in admitting things aren’t working. So in that, I’d say Montreal made the right choice.

3 TPE

12. Written, 2 TPE - The Procrastinator Special! (100 words min.)
Looks like [TEAM] won Season 74! Who won and why? What could the other team have done differently to change the result? What was your favorite part of the series?

The New England Wolfpack winning over the Winnipeg Aurora was definitely on my card for this finals. It was an incredibly high scoring series with each game having at least 6 goals scored. Winnipeg picked up twenty-two goals in the series compared to 28. Scoring wasn’t really the issue for Winnipeg as much as it was goaltending. Between the two teams, New England has a top level goaltender, as well as the better performing elite stars for the season. Despite this, Winnipeg made it interesting, forcing a game 6 where they eventually fell to New England. My favourite part of the series was the big overtime in game 3.

2 TPE


8/8 TPE Total